It Happened at the Lantern
by GrayDove
Summary: Chapter Two: Our Lucky Numbers. What Layla's lucky numbers mean to Warren. A series of unrelated WarrenLayla oneshots.
1. Kissing Warren Peace

**A/N: **Wow. I've never written a fanfic for a movie before- I'm much more into the games, where you tend to have a different type of audience. Anyways, I loved "Sky High," and felt that there needed to be some more Warren/Layla stories. So here y'go. Intended as a one-shot; I set out to write a story in 1,750 words, and did it! Victory!

And, yes, it's supposed to be a little disjointed and wordy. It's Layla's thoughts, so I'm trying to make it seem more…. Natural.

**Disclaimer: **Yeah, right. I don't own it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Layla had never kissed a walrus before. But, she could imagine that it would be far from pleasantly textured, taste disgusting, and have a huge tongue flopping around uselessly in your mouth. In other words, kissing a walrus wouldn't be that far removed from kissing Will Stronghold.

Well, maybe he wasn't as bad as she thought. After all, Layla didn't have any previous kissing experiences to compare Will to. Maybe she was the problem, after all.

But she couldn't help but wonder if kissing other boys let you taste whatever they'd eaten before brushing their teeth or chewing a piece of gum. She'd kissed Will many times after he'd just finished a mint, and he still tasted like scrambled eggs and bacon- at least, that was what she was guessing it was. Whatever that taste was, it wasn't a vegetarian breakfast, that was for sure.

In the beginning, she had thought that it would get better. She probably just wasn't used to kissing, so it was naturally awkward. They were bound to improve with time, right? And she was bound to get used to the whole concept.

Two years later, as the end of junior year was quickly approaching, Layla was pretty sure that any improvement should have happened long, long ago.

Then, there were his facial expressions. Layla knew that you were supposed to close your eyes when you kissed someone, but she had begun to find herself staring open-eyed at Will's expression. It looked like an odd mix of absolute disgust and pain, which Layla didn't understand in the least. He certainly liked kissing—she was never the one who instigated it, after all. He just looked like he was _thinking_ about the kiss.

Then again, how was she to know if Will really was an awful kisser, or she was the one who was screwing up? It shouldn't have been a problem, anyways. After all, kissing wasn't the most important part of their relationship. She had liked Will for years without kissing him. Now, kissing him was making her like him… less.

Layla was never one for dramatics, but something had to be done. Immediately. She was beginning to dread seeing Will, because she would have to give him a kiss "hello." Then, she didn't want to leave, because she had to kiss him "good-bye." It was a vicious cycle.

Her first impulse was to find someone else and kiss them. Will wouldn't appreciate it, though, and she didn't want to give someone else the wrong impression.

Then, she thought about asking someone- anyone. Magenta was her first pick, as she was the only other girl Layla really associated with. But Layla couldn't imagine Magenta wanting to divulge her inner feelings about Zach. It was odd enough that Magenta was dating Zach- the shapeshifter didn't need to start spouting sonnets about love to raise eyebrows.

And, with that, Layla had exhausted her source of girls to ask. There was, of course, the option of her mother—but that option was so revolting that she had cast it aside before even considering it.

Layla was a bright girl, but she couldn't come up with any more options. And she just had to know if she was missing something before the end of junior year. Before the only boy that she would consider asking for that favor would graduate.

So, with an iron will, Layla set out to kiss Warren Peace.

The place was obvious. She would approach him at The Paper Lantern, hopefully get the kiss then, and then leave. There was no chance of Will being there, and she could always bail out without raising suspicion.

The time had to be carefully, but swiftly, chosen. It was two weeks until prom, and another two until graduation. So it had to be in less than a month.

But for all of her deliberation, Layla woke up on the third Saturday before graduation, and decided that it was the day that she would test her theory. Surely, surely, kissing Warren Peace could not be any better than kissing Will Stronghold. Surely, surely, she didn't want to kiss Warren Peace just the tiniest bit stomach. Surely not.

She got dressed, finding herself lingering overlong on which outfit to wear. "As if it matters," Layla muttered. Even after that statement, she spent another ten minutes debating between three tops to go with a pair of simple blue jeans.

Eventually, she decided on nothing more than a plain, forest green T-shirt. Slipping it on, Layla observed herself in the mirror for a few moments. Was she too casual? What if he thought that she looked like she'd rolled out of bed?

What was she _thinking_?

It wasn't like she wanted to appeal to Warren Peace. He was a nice guy, certainly, but it wasn't like she cared what he thought. With that mindset, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and took one last look in the mirror.

She had flyaways, though. And, despite her firmest intentions to not worry about them, Layla brought her hands up and tucked the loose strand behind her ears.

Muttering watered-down curses under her breath, Layla half-ran down the stairs. No one in her house was awake at this hour; her mother was at the veterinary practice, and her father was sleeping in. She could avoid having to lie that she was going to eat with Will, which could always lead to unnecessary complications. Like if her mom called his mom, and asked when she was coming home…

Instead, she took a moment to scrawl a quick note to her father. "Gone out for breakfast, may go to the gardening show in town and be back after lunch. Layla."

And with that, Layla set off for the Paper Lantern.

It was amazing how quickly the trip passed when she was so caught up in just thinking about the entire situation. The sidewalk virtually flew beneath her feet, and The Paper Lantern was looming in her vision sooner than she had expected.

The door, much to her surprise, opened when she pushed—the restaurant itself didn't open for another hour and a half, for the early lunch crowd. "Warren?" she called softly, and was immediately relieved when a familiar face emerged from underneath the host booth, a pile of menus in his hand.

"Hey, hippie," Warren greeted her with a small nod. "You know that we don't serve breakfast, don't you?"

Layla rolled her eyes. "No, I've been blissfully unaware of that fact, despite the fact that this is my favorite restaurant, and I've often tried to get you to open for breakfast." How could she be so calm when she was about to kiss Warren Peace? In the name of science, of course, but still. Kissing Warren Peace!

He straightened the stack of menus one last time before setting them down, and then walked over to stand in front of her. "So, what's going on?"

Before she could lose her nerve, Layla stood on tip-toe, wrapped her arm around Warren's neck, and pulled him down into a kiss.

For a moment, he didn't do anything. Layla wanted nothing more than to turn and hurl herself out the door, to never ever see Warren Peace again.

And then, wonder of wonders, he was pressing his mouth against hers, arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her closer.

He tasted like chocolate mints, which Layla found odd, but didn't debate. She had planned on examining his facial expressions, but found that her eyes were closed. And she absolutely refused to consider opening them.

Even better, a thrill was running through her entire body, like… Well, like nothing she had ever experienced. She had thought that her first kisses with Will had been "magical"- but they were nothing, nothing compared to this. She wanted nothing more than to kiss him again.

Yet before she could kiss him again, they had to draw apart, which the two finally did. Layla was vaguely aware that she was wearing a wild smile, while Warren was staring, open-mouthed, at her. He stared for a few moments, then promptly closed his mouth and glowered.

"Why the hell would you do that, hippie?" he demanded, glaring. The term had suddenly been transformed from one of endearment to one of disgust. The scowl that had graced his face less and less since her freshman year had suddenly decided to resurface.

Layla didn't know what to say. "I- I…" Why _had_ she kissed him, anyways? "I had to see!"

The pyromancer's glare lifted for a moment, and was replaced by a puzzled frown. "See what?"

"I just had to!" Layla repeated. Her reasons seemed terribly flimsy now, when Warren demanded to know them. They were a little girl's solution for a little girl's problems with a little girl's boyfriend. She could have come up with something better something, that didn't involve kissing her boyfriend's best friend…

And then, before she could vocalize her own thoughts, Warren was leaning forward, pulling her roughly to him and crashing his mouth on hers.

The same thrill ran through her again, and Layla found herself relaxing into Warren's arms, where everything was amazingly… right.

When he pulled apart, an uncharacteristic smile on his face, Layla found herself laughing. "Why did you do that?" she asked, not bothering to untangle herself from his arms.

"You didn't have to have a reason, hippie," he responded. "So neither did I." And then, even more surprising, Warren Peace laughed. "But if you must know…"

"Oh, stop it!" Layla laughed, resting her forehead against Warren's shoulder and smiling when his arms encircled her even more tightly.

"If you have to know, I did it because I've wanted to for a long, long time. And hey, it's just a few weeks before graduation. I'm supposed to be tying up loose ends, aren't I?"

Layla looked into his face and smiled, standing slightly on tip-toes to brush her lips against Warren's.

There were no thoughts of what they were going to do the next day. Layla was far considering how she was going to break it to Will that she was- dare she even say the phrase that she so detested- in love with his best friend. Or if the relationship was even going to last, beyond a mild kissing fling…

For now, Layla was thinking that she had never kissed an angel. But she imagined that it couldn't be too far removed from kissing Warren Peace.


	2. Our Lucky Numbers

**A/N: **Okay… I had serious (and unexpected, but very appreciated!) demand to continue the first chapter, so here's the agreement. "It Happened at the Lantern" will be series of (usually) unrelated Warren/Layla one-shots. Some will be long, some (like this one) will be short, but they will all be Warren/Layla.

Dedicated to all of my wonderful reviewers, who encouraged me to continue.

**Disclaimer: **Sadly, I do not own them. Sorry.

* * *

It was amazing, what the prying fingers of a seven-year-old could find.

When Mommy wasn't asleep on the couch after work, it was fun to go into her room and go through her drawers. Mostly, it was about trying on Mommy's clothes—the clothes that Mommy never wore any more because she was always dressed in work clothes.

And sometimes, the prying fingers of a seven-year-old would come across something else.

Like in the very, very back of Mommy's lowest drawer, underneath a pretty green dress that a younger Mommy wore in the picture on the mantle, a piece of paper, folded over once and yellow with age.

The prying fingers lifted the paper, and unfolded it. A silver ring fell out, then a smaller slip of paper fluttered to the ground, and the fingers picked they two items up, eyes skimming over the words with all of the ability of a bright seven-year-old.

_To let true love remain unspoken is the surest path to a broken heart. 4-16-5-49_

It was a fortune cookie, like the ones they got on the second Wednesday of every month. Every Wednesday, Mommy went to community college for a class at night, and brought back takeout. The second Wednesday of the month, it was Chinese.

But Mommy had liked this one, for some reason.

Ever curious, those sticky fingers unfolded the bigger piece of paper. It was a list, with the same numbers that were on the paper from the fortune cookie. Someone had written it out in elegant cursive, which was a shame—the particular seven-year-old that the prying fingers belonged to did not know how to read cursive.

So, with the ring, the fortune cookie paper, and the bigger paper, the little girl ran into the living room, poking Mommy gently on the shoulder until she turned over and smiled.

"Hey, sweetie," Mommy said, blinking twice to clear her eyes. "Is something wrong?"

She shook her head—after all, Mommies always knew how to read cursive. "I want you to read this to me. Please?"

Mommy took the piece of paper, turned it over slowly, eyes scanning the paper. "Sweetie, I…" Mommy trailed off, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. "Mommy's tired," she finally sighed, eyes red. "And it's time for me to go to work again, anyways. You know who to call if you get scared?"

The little girl nodded vigorously. "Uncle Will and Aunt Jessica," she said. Mommy nodded, ruffling her little girl's hair, and slipped both pieces of paper and the ring into her pocket.

"I'll be back late, so be in bed by nine. Love you," Mommy told her, planting a light kiss on the mop of dark-brown curls.

"Love you too, Mommy."

Seven-year-olds do not think to look out the window after their mother leaves for work at eight at night, especially if their mother was always leaving to or coming back from one of three jobs.

And that is probably a good thing. For this particular little girl would have seen her mother, sliding into a beat-up car and sobbing quietly as she reread the words on the paper, then pulled out of the drive.

And it's even luckier that seven-year-olds cannot see their mother when the tears blurring her eyes leave her running a red light and being hit head-on by an F-350 going sixty miles an hour.

In Layla Greenleaf's car, the inspectors found very little. The old, barely-running vehicle was kept impeccably clean, with shabby seats that had been patched with different pieces of cloth until it was a veritable piecework of cloth. But in her clenched hand was a plain white-gold wedding band, the slip of paper from a fortune cookie, and a note yellowed with age.

_Your lucky numbers are mine, too._

_Sixteen is when I fell in love for the first time, with the most beautiful redheaded freshman girl who was mad for someone else._

_Four was the number of months after her first homecoming that I told her I was in love with her—and the number of days it took her to break up with her boyfriend._

_Five is the thousands of times I've wanted to kiss you since you started reading this note._

_And remember, forty-nine is the number of kids you'd have to have before I'd find you physically undesirable._

_But Layla, let me add three more. One. Countless. Forever._

_One is how many knees I'll drop to when you finish this note, even though I know that the answer will still be no._

_Countless is how many times I'll ask you to marry me, because I hope that one day, you will say yes._

_Forever is how long I'll love you._

_Warren _

At Layla Greenleaf's two-room apartment, her daughter crawled into bed with the clock struck nine, snapped out the scented candle on her dresser, and fell asleep.

Tonight, she would dream of Daddy, because talking about him only made Mommy cry.

And tomorrow, she would ask Mommy to teach her cursive, so she could read the note without having ask for Mommy's help.


End file.
